OpheliaCharacter assassination

Ophelia is beautiful, gentle and loving, capable of deep affection for her father and Hamlet but also lacking in the strength that would enable her to stand up for her lover or help her to endure the murder of her father.

Her beauty is commented on by several characters and Gertrude hopes that this beauty may be capable of distracting Hamlet from his gloomy thoughts:

III.1.38-41

“And for your part Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again”

It may be argued that Ophelia was too easily persuaded to stop seeing Hamlet, but we must remember that there was much greater emphasis placed on filial duty in Shakespeare’s age than in our own.

In addition, Ophelia has been told by her brother that Hamlet’s regard stemmed from lust not love and that, in any case, he is not free to choose his own wife:

I.3.5-9 and 16-21

“For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute”

“but you must fear,

His greatness weighed, his will is not his own,

For he himself is subject to his birth.

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself, for on his choice depends

The sanctity and health of this whole state.”

Later, when her father also suggests that Hamlet is only trifling with her, Ophelia agrees to obey her father’s command not to see him again:

I.3.132-6

“POLONIUS: I would not in plain terms from this time forth

Have you so slander any moment leisure

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to’t I charge you. Come your ways.

OPHELIA: I shall obey, my lord”

Although Ophelia obeyed her father’s command, it is clear that she loved Hamlet. She is extremely upset when she first notices that Hamlet is behaving strangely:

II.1.73

“Oh my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted”

Her sympathy for the young Prince is obvious as she describes his appearance:

II.1.79-82

“Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors –”

Ophelia allows herself to be used by Polonius and the King in an effort to prove whether or not Hamlet’s madness is the result of unrequited love, but there can be no doubt as to the depth of her own feelings after the interview. Hamlet criticised and rejected her and her response is one of grief for him and also for herself:

III.1.144-55

“Oh what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,

Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down,

And I of ladies most deject and wretched,

That sucked the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh;

That unmatched form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy. Oh woe is me

T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.”

Ophelia is an innocent, young girl but not ignorant of the ways of the world. She understands Laertes and her father when they urge her not to allow her love of Hamlet to over-rule her judgement and she certainly understands the bawdy puns used by Hamlet in III.1.119-43 and also in III.2.222-7:

“OPHELIA: You are as good as a chorus my lord.

HAMLET: I could interpret between you and your love if I could see the puppets dallying.

OPHELIA: You are keen my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET: It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.

OPHELIA: Still better and worse.”

Ophelia is capable of wit. She listens attentively to her brother’s admonishing in I.3 and then reminds him of his own behaviour:

I.3.45-51

“I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,

Do not as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles like a puffed and reckless libertine

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And recks not his own rede.”

Ophelia is overwhelmed by her loss of Hamlet, followed so quickly by the murder of her father. Her mind snaps and her full pathos is brought home to the audience in IV, when she appears wearing garlands of flowers and singing little bits of folksongs, all of which deal with the loss of a loved one, through either desertion or death:

IV.5.29-32

“He is dead and gone lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.”

In her madness, Ophelia loses her inhibitions and sings of sexual love in a way that reminds the audience of Hamlet’s outburst in III.1.119-43:

IV.5.58-66

“By Gis and Saint Charity,

Alack and fie for shame,

Young men will do’t if they come to’t –

By Cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed.’

He answers –

So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,

And thou hadst not come to my bed.”

Ophelia’s story parallels Hamlet’s. Both think they have been deserted by the one they love; both have lost a father through murder and both go to an untimely death.

Ophelia may lack the tragic dignity of some of Shakespeare’s other heroines but she inspires pathos in the audience. Like many of Shakespeare’s young heroines she is motherless and so has no woman to turn to for advice when difficulties arise.

It is worth adding that no character in the play has anything evil to say of Ophelia.

All regard her as young, beautiful and innocent, and as too immature to endure the hardships she had to suffer.